This actually causes a few snickers, and a few shushes from teachers, but for the most part, everyone remains quiet and attentive. I do hear one guy in my row whisper to the person next to him, “He’s laying it on kind of thick, isn’t he?” Maybe he is, but there’s no doubt Police Chief Walker is scaring the crap out of me.
He keeps going for a few minutes, finding different ways to say the same thing, before he ends his talk by giving out a special 800 number that has been set up for those with information about the case. These calls will be kept in strictest confidence, he assures everybody. One girl asks if a caller with information has to leave their name, or can they make the call anonymously? The police chief says yes, if you must. Which is kind of ironic when you think about it.
The assembly finally ends, and we all leave the auditorium. I look for Charlie but she seems to have already hurried off to her next class. I do see Greg and Amy walking together. He seems to be trying to comfort her, though he seems more upset than she does.
By the time lunch arrives, everyone is talking about it. Normally, I would sit with Charlie and some of her friends. I passed her in the hall a few times, but she didn’t acknowledge me. She did the same in English, the one class we have together. Now, as I stand with my tray, considering whether to go sit with her, she makes my decision for me, glaring at me before turning to say hi to a girl who sits down next to her.
I guess she also meant it when she said she wanted distance from me. I could sit with some guys I know, but I end up eating by myself.
Today’s a workout day for Charlie, so it’s not out of the ordinary to be walking home without her. I walk part of the way with some friends. Of course, all they want to talk about is the crazy assembly this morning. Who made the prank calls? Was it more than one person? Would the caller do it again? If the caller stopped, how would the police find out who it was? If the caller was caught, how bad would the punishment be? Would it include jail time? How do you think Greg and Amy reacted when Chief Walker pulled them out of class yesterday and told them about the call? On and on. They’re so into it, they hardly notice I’m only responding with nods and grunts and one-word answers.
After the two break off in different directions, I continue on alone. I might not normally be walking with Charlie, but I still miss having her next to me right now. Part of me understands why she needs distance. But part of me doesn’t. We’ve been friends for so long surely we can get past this.
The truth is, her need for “distance” hurts. It feels like she’s abandoned me. And I never thought she would do that.
It’s hard to imagine that last summer, before Alan Harder pulled out his gun, and we’d been happily ragging each other as we always did, I’d been thinking about how Charlie’s kiss had felt on my cheek. I’d been considering asking if I could kiss her. What would she have said?
Now that seems a long time ago. And it seems stupid I’d been thinking of her that way.
I’m sure her kiss had meant nothing.
A lot of things changed that awful day. Maybe things changed between Charlie and me as well, and it just took this long for us to realize it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time I’ve reached home, I know what I have to do before anything else: get rid of the bag of “evidence.” Charlie would probably freak out if she knew I still had it. With Uncle Bill not coming home till later, I have time.
I pull the bag out from its hiding place in my closet and stare at it for a moment. Then I open it, rummage around, and pull out the backpack. The bloodstain jumps out at me. This time because, again, it’s not as much blood as I remember. Which makes me question what it was I’d really seen. Does Greg really have it in him to hit Amy with a backpack full of books? If he was sorry afterward, would Amy really be willing to forgive him for something like that? I know if Amy were my girlfriend, I’d never hit her. Or any girl.
More likely, like Charlie said, Amy really did simply trip and fall, her head first hitting the dugout wall, then landing on the backpack when she hit the ground.
I’m lost in thought, still holding and staring at the backpack, when I hear, “Hey, Alden, you here?”
Crap, it’s Uncle Bill! What’s he doing home so early? Instead of answering, I drop the backpack into the bag, but it misses and hits the floor.
“Alden, are you upstairs?” I hear him start to move up the stairs. Frantically, I grab for the backpack, but I miss, my fingers only grazing it. My uncle’s footsteps are getting louder, closer. I grab for it again, successfully this time, shoving it in the bag then throwing it back into my closet.
Uncle Bill appears at my open doorway. “There you are,” he says. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
I open my mouth. “I…uh…”
“That’s okay,” he says, wearing a smile on his face I’ve rarely seen. “I got off early today. Thought you and I could do something. Make up for not getting to share pizza on Sunday. Maybe a movie and then dinner somewhere? If you don’t have a lot of homework.”
“Actually I do,” I say, though, really, all I have are a few easy math problems. “I might need to go to the library…” Once I figure out how to get the bag I’m hiding out of here without you seeing it.
“Oh,” he says. “Okay. I just thought…”
He looks so crestfallen my heart sinks. “Wait a minute. I don’t have to do all of it tonight. I have a few math problems due tomorrow. But the rest can wait.”
“You’re sure…”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I am.”
“Great!” He lights up again, his smile even bigger now. “Let’s look at the paper, pick a movie, then do your homework and we’ll go.”
“I can just check online,” I tell him.
“Where can you do that?”
“Here, I’ll show you.”
I glance back at my closet before leaving my room and following him down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I actually have a pretty good time. On the way to the movie, Uncle Bill asks me about school, and I surprise myself by telling him more than I usually do. Nothing too deep, mostly what I think about my classes and my teachers, who are my favorites and who aren’t. He shares some of what high school was like for him. He was just an average student when it came to English, math, and science, but he did enjoy history, and his best class was shop.
The movie is a dumb comedy, but it’s funnier than I expected, and I enjoy myself. I’m most surprised by how much my uncle laughs. He has a booming laugh that rises up from deep in his belly. It’s the kind of laugh that’s loud, but not annoying because it sounds so pure and heartfelt.
Dinner afterward is at a local diner, and our conversation is mostly about the movie, laughing again as we recap the funniest parts. Uncle Bill even shares how much he loved movies as a kid and when he was younger he went to the movies by himself, sitting through two or three films sometimes. But as he got older and busier, he had to cut back.
That’s another surprising thing I’ve learned: since living with me, I’ve never seen him sit down to watch an entire movie on television, much less go to a movie theatre.
“You know,” I tell him, “anytime you want to go the movies, and I’m busy with homework or school or something, it’s okay to go alone.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” he answers. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the time much with working overtime and all that.
“But,” he continues, “maybe you and I could go to a movie every now and then. You could bring your friend Charlie along, if you like. Maybe we could plan to rent a movie to watch together once a week.”
“I’d like that.”
By the time we pull into our street, the conversation has winded down. He’s smiling, but Uncle Bill looks tired—it’s past time when he normally falls asleep in his chair. I’m surprised to realize I haven’t thought at all about the hi
dden bag upstairs and the reason it’s there. It’s been nice not having it dominating my thoughts. But I need to start thinking about how to get rid of it. Tomorrow morning after Uncle Bill has left for work? Or maybe I should do it in the middle of the night.
“You want something to drink, Alden?” my uncle asks. “Why don’t you put something on the TV? I’d like to watch the ten o’clock news before I go to bed.”
Normally, he’s asleep in his chair before the news, and I’m up in my room. On one of the movie channels, I pick out an action flick I’ve seen three or four times with Charlie. It’s about three-quarters through the movie and will be over by ten.
I expect my uncle to come back with a beer for himself, but he has two ginger ales and hands one to me. He takes the armchair, and I sit on the couch. After a few minutes, he nervously clear his throat. “Alden,” he says. “There’s something I’d like to talk about.”
Uh-oh. He suspects something. He’s just been waiting for the right time to bring it up.
“Okay,” I say tentatively.
“Today was fun.”
When he doesn’t say anything more right away, I say, “Yeah, it was.” After another moment I add, “Thank you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to thank me,” he says. Then he pauses again. He seems to be thinking, considering what he wants to say, so I wait. Finally, he asks, “Is everything okay?”
Again, my defenses go up. Does he know something and that’s why he’s asking?
“Sure,” I answer, trying to sound casual.
“That’s good to hear.” He nods his head. More silence. I catch myself fidgeting and tell myself to stop.
“I’m sorry,” my uncle says. “I guess you’ve noticed I’m not much for talking. What’s that expression? I’m a man of few words. Your dad came up with that for me.”
At the mention of my father, I freeze.
“It comes from living by myself all these years before I moved here,” he continues. “I never married, don’t have any kids. Never really dated much, to tell you the God’s honest truth. You live by yourself long enough, you kind of…lose the ability to have a normal conversation.”
I’m thinking: And you’re telling me this, why?
He looks at me. “If we don’t talk much, it’s not because of you. I mean it’s not your fault or anything. What I’d like is to talk with you more. Hear what’s going on in your life besides what your grades are. If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” I say, after a moment. “Okay.”
He seems relieved, as if he’s lifted a big weight off his shoulders. All at once, he says, “You know, you’re a lot like your father.”
I suddenly feel as if something has sucked all the air out of me.
“I mean, you’re a lot like your father when he was your age,” he continues. “He was smart, like you are. And curious about a lot of things. He was only a year and a half older than me, but he always seemed older than that. And he was always a lot smarter than me. He enjoyed playing games, all kinds of games, board games, card games, you name it. Of course, you know he loved playing games with you and your mom. After he married your mom, they’d have me over, I didn’t live too far away then, and we’d play hearts, pinochle, Trivial Pursuit. I remember when you were a baby, you’d sit in his lap while he was looking at his cards. You were real cute. And you were curious even then, the way you seemed to study his cards, the way you seemed to study everything.”
He pauses and looks away for a moment. I can’t seem to breathe. Why is he telling me this? Dramatic music is building on the television. The movie’s exciting climax is about to happen, but neither of us is paying attention to it. I feel a light panic building inside me, and I have to blink to clear away tears. When Uncle Bill turns back, his eyes are glistening, too.
“When I took a new job that had me on the road a lot, and moved away,” he says, “I lost contact with your dad and mom. I don’t mean we never talked, but we only talked some on the phone, and even those calls got less and less. I was here for a visit only once after I moved, just for a couple days. You probably don’t remember, you were only four or five. I feel awful about missing the funeral, but I didn’t know about it because I’d been on the road and no one knew how to get hold of me. I’ve really regretted…”
He takes in a deep breath. “I’ve noticed you don’t talk much about your father to me, and that’s okay. Here I was, somebody you hadn’t seen since you were little, and who you probably didn’t remember, coming back into your life to try and take over for your dad…and your mom, too. Not that I could ever replace them. I know that. I never wanted to. I just wanted to help.”
Another deep breath, then he says, “But I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind… If we could talk sometimes…about your father. I could tell you what your dad was like when he was your age. And maybe you could tell me a little of what my brother was like in those years after I moved away and you were growing up. Would that be okay?”
He’s looking at me, his eyes pleading, and for a brief moment I’m back on the day of my parents’ funeral, standing in the cemetery. The whole town is there, and so many people are crying, including Charlie, who is next to me, holding my hand. But I’m not crying. I’m staring at the two closed caskets and telling myself Dad and Mom are not in there. None of this is real. And, later, when so many people tell me how sorry they are, all I say is “Thank you,” over and over. Because to say more means to give in, to admit that what’s happening is real.
Charlie is right: I’ve never talked to anyone about my parents since their deaths. Not even to her, my best friend. Because to do so makes this whole nightmare something I’ll never be able to wake up from.
“Sure,” I hear myself tell my uncle. Even though I know, down in some deeper part of me, that I can’t.
And that, despite all my uncle’s done for me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Well then,” my uncle says. “Okay.” He glances at the TV and says, “Let’s watch the end of this movie, then I’ll catch some of the news before I go to bed.”
It turns out the movie only has five minutes left, but by the time I click the remote to switch to the news, Uncle Bill is asleep and snoring in the armchair. Normally, I’d head upstairs, but this time I don’t, staying on the couch as the news program plays its dramatic theme song. Instead of watching, I sip my ginger ale and stare at my uncle sleeping, wondering how long he’s been wanting to talk to me like this, and how I’ve shut him down every time he mentioned my father.
I’m about to put the remote on the table next to him and go to bed when something in the news broadcast catches my attention. “…is still missing,” the newscaster is saying.
Someone is missing? My eyes on the screen, I sit back down on the couch.
“The Carlson High School junior,” the newscaster continues, “was last seen leaving at the end of school last Thursday afternoon.”
Thursday. The same afternoon I followed Greg to Miller’s Park, where he argued with Amy. A photo of Amy appears on the screen, her bright red hair standing out. She’s even wearing the same blue jacket she was wearing that day.
What’s going on?
The picture shrinks to the left corner of the screen as a video shows a crying woman standing next to a tearful man who has his arm around her, the woman saying, “If someone knows where our daughter is, I beg you to call us. You don’t have to give us your name. We just want our daughter back safe and sound.” Below the two people is a caption that reads, “Theresa and James Beaumont, parents of the missing Alycia Beaumont.” Now the Carlson police chief is saying something. Then the photo fills up the screen again, the name Alycia Beaumont clearly under it, and I study it closely. The newscaster is speaking again. “She was last seen wearing a white blouse, blue jeans, and the same blue jacket she is seen wearing in this picture.”
The girl in the picture isn’t Amy, but she looks a lot like her. She has the same bright red hair, a similar complexion. The jacket is even the same shade of blue.
“Again, a special tip line has been set up for anyone with information at 800—”
I don’t hear the rest of the number as I tear up the stairs to my room where I yank out the bag from my closet.
On foot, the Carlson and Milton high schools are forty-five minutes to an hour apart. I pull up Google Maps and check Miller’s Park in relation to Carlson and Milton. It’s what I thought. Miller’s Park is halfway between the two high schools. So the walk to the park would be about the same from Carlson High as it had been for me following Greg from Milton.
I pull out the backpack. Could this be Alycia Beaumont’s blood, not Amy’s? How would I know? Why would Greg have been meeting a girl from another high school? Then I remember something Charlie said. A rumor she’d heard that Greg was cheating on Amy. She’d said there was nothing to it.
Except maybe there was. If Greg had been seeing Alycia behind Amy’s back, maybe Alycia had wanted to meet up with Greg to make him choose. Her or Amy? Or maybe she’d told Greg at Miller’s Park that if he didn’t break up with Amy, Alycia was going to tell her about them. That’s why he killed her.
As I think back, I realize there are more differences between the two girls than similarities. Standing next to each other, I’d have no problem telling them apart. But at a distance—the distance from where I’d been hiding to where Greg and the girl had been talking—it would have been very possible to mistake Alycia Beaumont for Amy Sloan.
Maybe Greg killed Alycia. But how do I prove it?
A good investigator takes yet another fresh look at the evidence when needed.
I start with Greg’s clothing. All of it is clearly his. Not sure what I’m looking for, I check the pockets of the jeans and jacket. Nothing. Next is the silver cross necklace. Clearly, it’s Amy’s. It has her name on it. So why did Greg have it? My fingers glide over the broken clasp like I’m trying to read braille. Maybe Greg told Amy he’d get it fixed for her. Then he lost it at the field while killing Alycia and moving her body. Makes sense.
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